i wish i could enjoy warm weather the way it seems most people do. i would take snow over heat almost any day. i love the brilliant colors of late fall and i love the peaceful white of snow. i love to bundle up. it's a cozy, childlike sensation for me, and associated with my nostalgia for all the time i used to spend in MN as a kid. i keep it 60 degrees in my house during the winter and 65 in the summer. my problem (or one of many) is that ever since i was 19 i've had strange hot flashes! it's as though i have early onset menopause. i am always hot when other people are freezing. temperature-wise i'm compatible with so few people! i drive my boyfriend crazy when he visits. he has to wear sweaters and curl up under my bedsheets. if it's above 65 in here i totally panic and feel like my skin scratches heavily from inside out and i can't breathe under it. i sweat like crazy and even develop hives if it goes on for TOO long. no dr. has ever been able to pinpoint what exactly is wrong with me besides some sort of really wayward temperature-related panic disorder (on top of the general panic disorder i ALREADY have!)...they've always been stumped. i used to wonder if it was a side-effect of my birth control, but i still had this problem for several years when i stopped taking birth control. since then, i just live with it and accept it, confusedly. but unfortunately other people have to live with it as well, if they want to be in my space. i hate showering because i'm immediately way too hot right afterwards and i feel like my whole house is a sauna. i become terribly flushed and breathless and distressed and if i sweat i freak out because then it seems like the shower was pointless. when it's summer i stay indoors as much as humanly possible, though florescent lights exacerbate the problem too, so the lights have to be at least somewhat dim! i always feel very uneasy when i go to a restaurant with people and someone suggests eating outside...grrr! luckily (not really), i have strong agoraphobic tendencies so i don't experience this too often anymore. curiously, the first time i flushed and became so hot and hivesy at the same time i happened to be modeling (i mean, as an artist's model.) i had been modeling for art students and professors for several months without incident but one day i felt myself become terribly hot and panicky standing up there. that was about FIFTEEN years ago though! plus i always had a flushing problem before that, SO much blushing due to shyness and social anxiety and feeling on the spot...just not the hot hives til i was 19. it's just yet another mysterious bodily burden of mine. i love cold weather and snow and i love any excuse (if i am not in a depressive antisocial phase) to wear colorful funky blazers, mittens, scarves, tall boots, hats...

-marina